


gloriana

by lyricalprose (fairylights)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen, based on 50th speculation, post-Waters of Mars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-07
Updated: 2013-11-07
Packaged: 2017-12-31 18:09:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1034788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairylights/pseuds/lyricalprose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The queen swallows another grape. “You would never wed me, Doctor. Not in truth. And so you shall have no kiss, and no grapes besides.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	gloriana

For less than a minute – the amount of time it takes for Adelaide to walk inside her home, draw her weapon, and pull the trigger – he’s the _winner._  
  
He’s already started planning it out, while she walks away. There are a hundred different causal nexuses the Doctor knows he can manipulate, a thousand shining threads in the web of time that he can envision a new pattern for. He can go back and avert the Reality Bomb, can stop the metacrisis from ever happening, can keep Donna safe and whole. He can purge the barest _possibility_ of the Year That Never Was from the fabric of the universe, can spare Martha and Jack and the rest of the world all that pain. He can spare the Master, can _save_ him again and again and again until it bloody takes – whether the bastard likes it or not.  
  
He can go back to Canary Wharf. Or before, even. He could stamp out Torchwood before they ever become powerful enough to meddle with the walls between universes, before they can dig their greedy little claws into his world and wrench _her_ away from him.  
  
He can save them all. He can save _Rose._  
  
Then there’s the crack of a gunshot, accompanied by the sickening _snap_ of a timeline – no, not just a timeline, a _fixed point_ – being forced out of joint, broken and reshaped in a way it was never meant to be.  
  
He falls to his knees in the snow, and it soaks right through his thin trousers. The chill seeps through his skin and into his bones, curls icy fingers around his hearts and squeezes.  
  
Inside the TARDIS, the Cloister Bell rings.  
—-  
  
The Queen is a mistake – which, all things considered, is hardly a surprise.  
  
It’s a bit of a mess, really. He’d only meant to swing by and visit Shakespeare, on his way back from the newly-christened Allison Galaxy – but, of course, he’d ended up at Whitehall instead of the Globe, and a bit off on the year, as well.  
  
The bloody Cloister Bell that he’s trying to ignore makes accomplishing accurate landings very difficult.  
  
Anyways, as it happens, Whitehall is overrun with an infestation of Zygons, one of which is impersonating Good Queen Bess herself. The _real_ Queen Bess is none too pleased, though he thinks she’s rather unfairly taking out that displeasure on _him._  
  
It feels nice, for a moment, to be the hero again. And Elizabeth is whip-smart and _ginger_ and really pretty brilliant, even if she does steadfastly refuse to hold his hand while they make a break from the Zygons. There’s a bit of a to-do where he has to pretend to be one of the not-the-Queen’s suitors, and another where he thinks he might have actually _married_ the Zygon impersonating her, but it all comes right in the end.  
  
(He breathes a sigh of relief as the queen’s shifting timeline settles back into place; there are no fixed points here, no unalterable events, but he feels as though the smallest shift in the fabric of time may just break him, at this point).  
  
The lords and ladies of the court, if less so their ruler, do seem to take a shine to him; he stays long enough to attend two formal dinners, perform in a play put on the court, and sit for a portrait.  
  
It’s all quite dull and safe and _horrid_ , honestly, but in the halls of the palace he cannot hear the Ood-song, and he cannot hear the Cloister Bell.  
  
—-  
  
The ladies of the court entice him along on a picnic, and he goes along aimlessly, listlessly, hoping for a distraction that will last longer than a meal, or a portrait sitting, or a concert in the main hall. The giggling ladies-in-waiting are themselves inevitably distracted by something or other, and he is left alone with the queen, sitting together on a wool blanket with the picnic things. He’s got a stem of grapes in his hands, idly tossing it up in the air while he discusses contemporary Flemish painting with the queen.  
  
He likes Elizabeth, he really does. She’s smart and ginger and brilliant and really rather beautiful, for a human. And even if she does still seem a little steamed at him for bringing disorder into her court – as if the Zygons were _his_ fault, honestly – she’s mostly pleasant in conversation with him, every inch the polished diplomat even though she’s still quite young, at this point in time.  
  
And she’s – well, she’s _there,_ and he doesn’t particularly want to be.  
  
So during a break in the conversation, he leans in and kisses her.  
  
Their lips are only connected for a moment before she pushes him away. “You are no better than the others,” the queen snaps. “And I had begun to think passing well of you, Doctor.”  
  
“I am not your wife,” she continues, taking the grapes from his hand and plucking a few pieces of fruit from the stem. “No matter what charade we may have perpetuated in the past days, I am _no_ man’s wife, and nor shall I ever be.”  
  
The queen of England levels him with a hard stare, the same one that has lived on in drawings and portraits eons after her death It is even, assessing, and speaks of a sharp wit and an even sharper mind. “And I am no man’s mistress, either.”  
  
He splutters and chokes on the words he meant to say, instead only managing a strangled “What?”  
  
“You do not kiss like a man who intends to keep marriage vows.” She pops a grape into her mouth and give him a dubious look. “You kiss like one of my suitors – the ones who only want a crown, who intend to have other women warm their beds.”  
  
The queen swallows another grape. “You would never wed me, Doctor. Not in truth. And so you shall have no kiss, and no grapes besides.”  
  
“In fact,” she continues, “We rather tire of your presence at Whitehall. You will remove yourself from the residence by nightfall, or else face dire consequences.”  
  
“But–” He reaches out for her; floundering, reeling from the sting of her words and his own embarrassment. He cannot, it seems, do anything right anymore – even talking, which has always come so naturally to this body.  
  
The queen does not move away, but the ice in her eyes stops his hand. “Try me further, Doctor,” she says levelly, “and I shall have your _head._ ”  
  
Despite the queen’s warning, he lingers too long in the halls of the palace. It’s only because he’s so very good at running that he manages to outpace the guards and make it to the TARDIS with his head still attached to his shoulders.  
  
And inside the ship, the Cloister Bell is still ringing.


End file.
